Giovanni Messe

Giovanni Messe (10 December 1883-18 December 1968) was a Field Marshal of Fascist Italy who was considered to be Italy's best general during World War II.

Biography
Giovanni Messe was born on 10 December 1883 in Mesagne, Province of Brindisi, Apulia, Italy. Messe entered the Royal Italian Army in 1901 and saw action in the 1911 Italo-Turkish War and in World War I, emerging as a decorated war hero from the two wars. From 1923 to 1927 he was the aide-de-camp to King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and led a unit of Bersaglieri from 1927 to 1935. In 1935, he took command of a motorized division that saw action in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and served under Albanian Governor-General Ubaldo Soddu in the 1940-1941 Greco-Italian War. Messe was given command of the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia, while his armored warfare experience might have been better used in the North African Campaign. In February 1943, he was transferred to North Africa after the Battle of Stalingrad and the replacement of the expeditionary corps with Italo Gariboldi's Italian Army in Russia. Messe attempted to defend Axis-held North Africa in a delaying campaign that included the Battle of the Mareth Line on 16-31 March 1943, and he surrendered at Cape Bon with the other Italian forces. When the Kingdom of Italy defected to the Allied Powers, he was given command of some royalist Italian troops that fought alongside the Allies, and he retired from the army in 1947. He died in 1968 at the age of 85.